You're Still Here
by liquid-thought
Summary: Castiel's gone, Jimmy's left and he isn't very pleased about it. They're still looking for the angel, but Jimmy's too distracted by how broken his life is to really concentrate. Dean can sympathize.


Jimmy swirled a finger of scotch around his glass again, staring at the alcohol like it might answer his questions. He knew it wouldn't help, never did. But hey, an angel wiped his existence off the face of the earth and replaced him in everyone's lives so fuck it, right? Getting drunk didn't matter much to a dead man.

Except that Dean was literally a dead man walking and was not really very pleased with Jimmy's behavior. _'Hypocrite.'_

Dean snatched the glass from him and downed it, glaring at the older man.

"Hey!"

"No, this has gotta stop." His voice was low, dangerous. Jimmy didn't much care. He knew logically that he should be frightened of Dean. The man grew up killing and knew how to hide a body better than some murderers but Jimmy needed to feel alive. Even if it was only to feel himself being beaten.

"Dean..." His voice was rough from the alcohol and a lack of sleep. Even with the rough edge it sounded nothing at all like the angel he used to house in his skin. "You don't get it."

Dean threw the glass to the other side of the room, glass shattering against the wall. He clenched his fist, his mouth opening before closing tightly. His jaw ground, he was trying to restrain himself. When he spoke again, it was through clenched teeth. "I don't get it? Which part, Jimmy? The being considered dead or having people I can never see again part? Because out of everyone in the freakin' world, Jimmy, I really am the only one who _can_ get it!"

Jimmy stood up and moved toward Dean, the last vestiges of self-preservation bleeding out in his anger. "You still have people who know you exist, Dean! You still have family and friends! You're still here!"

"And so are you!"

They were crowding each other, heat radiating and bouncing off of their bodies in their proximity. Dean was much larger than Jimmy, taller with more well-defined muscles. Jimmy was a jogger, Dean was a warrior. It was stupid to crowd him and think it would do anything. But his heart was pounding, his senses were sharp and he was actually feeling something. He'd take what he could get.

Up close he could clearly see the outrage in Dean's eyes, the green turning hard and sharp, his nostrils flaring as he panted. Jimmy's anger bled away to depression. Again, someone else was feeling more than he was. Dean had reason to, to say the least. He began to turn away when a large hand gripped him roughly by the shoulder.

"Hey, don't you dare turn away from me." Dean kept him close, studying his face. After Castiel left, Jimmy could feel the hunter's eyes on him, searching for any remnant of the angel. It angered him. He had the body first, Castiel was a visitor and it wasn't fair of Dean to look at him like he was the stranger in the situation. "You're still here, Jimmy." His voice was low, a soft thrum through the air. How odd that it could bark one minute and glide the next. No wonder Castiel had been so fascinated.

"Yeah? I don't feel like it. No one remembers me, Dean. Cas erased me like I was nothing. My daughter…" Jimmy's voice broke, tears welling up and spilling down his cheeks. He sniffed hard, trying to regain some of his composure. "My wife has another husband, my friends have someone else… I'm nothing."

Dean's eyes were soft, one of his hands on Jimmy's arm, his thumb smoothing soothingly over the skin of his forearm. A flash of pink tongue caught Jimmy's eyes. He could remember Dean speaking to Castiel, pleasuring him with that tongue. It was Jimmy's body that it touched. Jimmy was even awake for some of it. How would Dean react if he knew that Jimmy had told Cas he liked to watch and feel it, too?

"You know… back when the apocalypse was running, Cas and Sam and me, we went back in time. An angel… Anna, she was going to try and kill my parents to keep me and Sam from being born. Stop us, stop everything kinda deal." Dean led Jimmy to sit on his bed, the bottle of Scotch still present on the table between the two mattresses. Their knees knocked when Dean sat across from him. "I met my mom. She died when I was four, Azazel killed her because she walked in on him messin' with Sam." Dean took a deep breath, grabbing the bottle to take a deep pull before plowing on. "I managed to convince her that I was her son. Told her everything and she got to a point where she believed me. I told her not to walk into the nursery that night. I told her that no matter what she saw or heard she could not walk in there. Then Anna showed up." The muscles of his jaw ticked, another gulp of alcohol draining down his throat. Jimmy listened in stunned silence. "My dad got thrown, Sam was dead, my mom was next. So, Michael shows up. Asks my dad to be his jacket for a while." Dean looked directly at Jimmy, holding his eyes while the other man listened. Jimmy's mouth opened in shock, he knew about bloodlines and being a vessel, but he hadn't realized John had ever housed Michael. Wasn't awake for everything, it would seem. "He saved them. Then he erased their memories." Jimmy could almost feel the other man breaking as he spoke. Tears filled Dean's eyes and he gave a miserable smile as they fell down his face. "So even though she met me and I got to warn her, I couldn't do a damn thing to save her. She still died. Because an angel erased her memory. So yeah, Jimmy, I get it."

Jimmy wasn't sure what to say. What could he say? He huffed a small, humorless chuckle. "You know, I'm beginning to think we should start a club." Dean laughed with him, wiping his face with the back of his hand. The tension that had built was slowly fading.

"Yeah, probably. Look, you just… life sucks, all right? It sucks royally and then you die," Dean's brows shot up as he muttered _a few times_ under his breath, "but you can't give up, okay?"

There was something new in Dean's eyes. Jimmy wasn't sure what it was. He'd never seen it in anyone else's face, so maybe it was just something that made Dean unique. Who knew, maybe it was something in his genes. Maybe the Winchesters had their very own look, one that was all their own that let people know when they meant business.

"How do you do it? How do you keep fighting?"

Dean smirked. "Really poorly, I'll be honest."

Their eyes met and something seemed to click, some sort of unspoken understanding unfolded between them. They were starved, both of them. So much of who they were was damaged. Their lives were changed irrevocably by Castiel and somehow they both couldn't bring themselves to blame the celestial being. Even though Jimmy wanted to so desperately, he knew the truth of it. Seeing his wife possessed hit that lesson home real fast. They were safer not knowing. But Dean was right, he wasn't alone. The more they stared, the more an all-new tension mounted.

Large hands grabbed him, one by the back of the head and the other by the arm, as he was hauled from his bed to Dean's lap. His lips met the other man's, softer than his, not chapped. The skin beneath his was so warm it was hard to not feel stifled against it. Jimmy deepened the kiss, his tongue pushing into Dean's willing mouth. He licked his way inside and moaned softly at the sensation. They played a game, it seemed, tongues pushing and teasing around each other. It wasn't like any other kiss he'd had. _'Finally, something real.'_ His lungs burned and he broke the kiss to breathe.

Dean panted against him, ragged breaths fanning across his face. "I told you, you're still here."


End file.
